Q&A: New Underoath drummer Daniel Davison

Despite his understandable thrill at having the chance to join UNDEROATH (featured in AP 269) as the band’s new drummer, DANIEL DAVISON (second from left) has been far from dormant since leaving Norma Jean in 2007. Between playing and working various roles in the music buisness, Davison has had a lot of irons in the fire in recent years. It almost sounds like he’s relieved to have just one primary project to focus on this year.

What have you been up to since Norma Jean? About a month or two after leaving Norma Jean, I ended up officially starting a company with my wife doing music videos [Isthmus Studio], and basically music-related film and video work, which I’d already been doing while in Norma Jean but never officially devoted a lot of my time to it. I did that, and worked with bands like Manchester Orchestra and Copeland. It was taking up a lot of time, and then I started managing a couple of bands, too (Oceana, Dead And Divine and Slowriter).

How did that go? I started working with a company called Blood Company—I knew them because they managed Norma Jean—so that’s pretty much what took up the bulk of my time after I left the band.

Did you play drums much? I pretty much wasn’t playing music until January of this year, when I started playing with Colour Revolt and recorded [The Cradle] with them in February, which was really fun. A month passed, and then I got the call from Underoath and decided to do that.

Was focusing more on the business side of music something you had wanted to do? I wasn’t burnt out at all—it just kind of worked out that way, and I think it was partially that I didn’t want to just start another band and try to make a living from it. I know how long that takes, and I had kind of immediate things I had to pay, so it was kind of a very necessary move. I didn’t want to go out and get some random job just to make money; I still wanted to do something that I believed in and felt passionate about and that I really enjoyed.

Did you miss playing in a touring band? At first it was kind of hard to get used to daily life—to be at home—because when you’re in a band, you’re maybe home for a month and then you have to leave and tour, and you fall into that rhythm and it’s really fun. So it took awhile to get used to, but once I kind of got over that hump, I enjoyed that consistency of being at home, because that was the first time I’d been at home for more than two or three months since I was 16. It’d been, like, 10 years since I’d had that consistent home life and actually got to hang out with a group of friends or develop those friendships that I’d not been able to fully invest in, seeing someone for a couple weeks at a time, and then having to leave again. So that was cool, but I’m stoked to be back on tour again.

With another touring cycle coming up, what does your wife think? I think it’s good. She was pushing for me to do [Underoath] when Tim [McTague] called. She was like, “You gotta do this. You were made for that.” And as far as she’s concerned, playing and writing music is what I’m meant to do. She loves it and she loves to see me play, so she’s super-stoked on it. We definitely got used to being around each other more, but it’s funny: She used to tour with Norma Jean and pretty much went on all of our tours, so she’ll be coming out. She came out on some of my first tours with Underoath, so I’m sure that’ll continue. There are no negatives about it. alt